Name: Roast Opossum with Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 opossum; salt; pepper; 1 pint water; 1 pound salt pork, cut in pieces; sweet potatoes, washed and peeled; butter

Why it works: Pepper and sweet potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,015 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roast Opossum with Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Split the opossum lengthwise.
Dredge with salt and pepper.
Place in a pan with water and salt pork.
Arrange sweet potatoes around the opossum.
Cover with buttered paper if the opossum is large.
If the potatoes are done before the meat, remove and keep warm until serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Pepper + sweet potatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + sweet potatotop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together235 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).